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Vince Lombardi, sport's premier winner, was so sure of his
success that his strategy consisted of but one tactic: "I'll
give the other team my game plan and plays. If they can stop
them, they'll win; if they can't, I'll win."
Sugar Ray Leonard tried the exact same approach. Only this
time, Roberto Duran stopped it. And won.
The difference between Lombardi and Leonard reduced itself to
one distinction: Lombardi was talking about using his
strength(s), not the other guy's. Challenging his opponent
to make the mistakes, and taking advantage of him when he
didn't respond correctly. Leonard, on the other hand, was
determined to use his opponent's strength, not his own.
Therein lay the underlying weakness in Sugar Ray's battle
plan.
And so, he with the lightning fists and well-defined moves,
inexplicably took on the man with hands of stone and the
straight-forward, but subtle, moves in a deadly game-a game
of "Machismo." And, as he must, he lost. Not only because
the word "Macho" is a spanish word meaning "courage and
aggressiveness"-today given new meaning by a
Spanish-speaking Panamanian, whose forebears had invented
the word duran was to perfect-but because he was destined to
lose playing another man's game; a game which played into
Duran's hands-"of stone."
The battle plan against Duran was Sugar Ray's idea, and his
alone. "I surprised a lot of people with my tactics..." he
was to say after the fight. "I fought Duran a way I thought
I could beat him." Angelo Dundee concurred, saying only
that, "It was his plan. He had it in his head that he was
stronger than Duran." Even before the man with the plan
entered the ring, Roberto Duran had scored the first punch,
psychologically. Entering the ring a full two minutes before
the-then WBC welterweight champion, Duran had beamed to the
crowd and his handlers-followers had unfurled the Quebec
Liberation flag. It was to be his last smile of the night.
He would waste none on the Sugarman, who entered the ring to
the shouts of the $20 patrons, sitting somewhere North of
Moose Jaw in the upper reaches of the same Olympic Stadium
where just four years before, Leonard had become the darling
of the 1976 Olympics. Now in his best laid-back manner, he
bowed respectfully to all four corners-Nord, Est, Sud et
Quest-as the sounds of adulation fell like the cloudburst
which had just drenched the 46,317 Fightophile fans who had
turned out to see what was billed as the "Fight of the
Decade," just six months into the decade. It was a build-up
soon to be acquitted by the fight to follow.
But, if it did rain on the 46,000-plus, it was not to rain on
Roberto Duran's parade as very shortly after the first bell
it became evident he intended to dominate the action, and
that Sugar Ray intended to allow him to do so. |
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